Episode 45
...Or are You Just Happy to See Me? As we approached the location where we had detected the gravitational anomaly we determined that there were actually several locations of interest, scattered relatively close together throughout a portion of the asteroid belt. Pete and Joe fanned out in the Blackbird space-fighters to cover the Hound, where Oz was commanding the Piloting of Crash and T-Dog, (the 'three amigos'), while Kiwi started scanning the sites of the anomalies from the Astrometrics Lab. Oz also kicked off a rare 'defend' Squad Command to take advantage of the 'pilot assistance' rules where we could stack defend bonuses. In an interesting twist he's commanding more artificial than organic intelligences. Soon enough, he located a number of Reavers around the first zone, including a couple of smaller drones, (well, like 8 section Ships smaller), as well as a big-ass Reaver General that appeared to be high-enough level, (over 22!), to see through our Anti-Souldar effects and was directing the others to move towards us, (or they have reverse engineered the Anti-Souldar effect from the Schematics we sent OI?). Dodging one of the giant asteroids that were ricocheting around the map, Joe and Pete caught the first Reaver in a cross-fire, unleashing simultaneous bursts from their railgun batteries, while the Hound tried to skirt around the battle to approach the first anomaly. Unfortunately, due to the ancient evil that is the Reaver soul-skin power, by the time the combined railgun bursts had managed to chew through the Reaver's defenses enough for it to run like a bitch, it was able to unleash its full 'patented-Amarbiter-cheap-bullshit-missile-volley-action. First it attempted to neutralize Pete's anti-missile chaff, striking the platform it was mounted on with a maser called-shot, but this was thwarted by the Blackbird's electromagnetic-shielding. Then it proceeded to launch a burst of sticky rockets that conveniently chose to ignore AC, (yes, seriously). In addition to imparting huge penalties to Pilot and Agility, they also had an awesome TAG effect that was immune to Pete's Anti-TAG Sensor / Jammer, even though that is what it was explicitly designed to stop. Needless to say, when the missile volley came with its full bonus to strike, the anti-missile rocket didn't have a chance. Fortunately the Blackbird's RF was adequate to absorb all of the Missile Damage, except for the criticals of course, (which they only get on 25% of their Strikes), so only half of its AC was blown off. Meanwhile, Oz and the AIs continued to pick their way through the asteroids, the three of them apparently adding up to one pilot good enough to fly the Hound. Down below in the Astrometrics Lab, Kiwi continued to observe as the Big Reaver appeared to some how interact with the first anomaly, causing it to wink-out! Moving on, it appeared to be proceeding towards the next one. As another Escort appeared and proceeded to subject OJ's Blackbird to the P.A.C.B.M.V.A., and Kiwi's continued scanning revealed additional Reavers both large and small(ish), we started to wonder if this fight was not going to be winnable, and if we were really in a race to reach the last anomaly? Under Oz's command, 'three amigo pilots' flew the Hound over to the nearest anomaly where Oz attempted to activate the Repository with a tight-beam radio burst. Unfortunately, that anomaly was not the one we were looking for. When the Hound started to draw fire from an Escort Kiwi moved out onto the hull to manually remove a TAG while he prepared to translocate to an anomaly before the General could. Luckily for the Hound, the Escort fumbled his next shot and then in a remarkable show of 'rogue piloting', Oz dodged a critical strike with an equally critical defend. Things were looking pretty desperate when we called it for the night. Joe and Pete barely managed to scare off a single Escort but took significant damage doing so. The Reaver General had closed one anomaly and was close to reaching another. The other anomaly was guarded by Reavers and closer to the General than us. The Hound was taking fire but without the firepower of the Veilos interceptors likely could not hold out for long. Where is the Veilos special defence acronym force when we need them? Reavers identified: * Reaver General ** More powerful than the Reaver Spawners (lvl 22) ** hundreds involved in past Reaver wars ** composed of ten different sections ** likely a mini-husk inside that can eject and operate independently * Reaver Reaper ** Not much is known about these guys yet but their picture makes it look like they have some large melee weapon of some kind * Reaver Escort ** The type that Joe and Pete engaged. ** Likely the weakest of the three in the sector ** nasty tag missiles, volleys, and bursts Logger 11 Combat Karlid bennie . Back to Space Junk Log Category:Space Junk